


I Will Love You

by dametokillfor



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Falling In Love, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 06:12:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6144115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dametokillfor/pseuds/dametokillfor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While benched on a mission in 2020, Len and Ray discover a few things about their future they'd never expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, apologies to anyone who saw this earlier, somehow I ended up posting completely the wrong version. I'm not sure what happened. 
> 
> I had planned to write fix-it after the last episode, but Mick and Len refused to co-operate, so I decided to play with this idea that had been floating around in my head for a little while. 
> 
> This is the first time I've written from Len's POV, and he was a lot harder than I expected him to be. I'm still not 100% certain I nailed him.

Len isn't surprised when Ray is at his door almost seconds after they get back onto the Waverider. 

He hopes Ray isn't surprised when Len doesn't answer the door, and just continues pacing his room.

Rip had taken them into the future, to collect something they needed for repairs on the Waverider. He had benched Len, Mick and Ray, telling them it was imperative they stay behind. 

It had taken exactly seven minutes before Len and Mick had decided testing future security systems was an irresistible prospect. 30 seconds after that, Ray had decided it was his duty to play their babysitter and ensure nothing actually got stolen.

Len wishes he'd succeeded, wishes he'd stopped them breaking into the house he and Mick had targeted.

“Snart.” Ray bangs on Len’s door.

“Go away, Raymond.” Len snaps. He's not interested in talking about this in the past, the present or the future. 

The banging stops. Len can hear Ray sigh outside, “Len, please.”

Len drops onto his bunk, head in his hands. He feels wrecked, emotionally exhausted, lost and confused. There's a sob in his throat, and tears are stinging his eyes, and this isn't him. This isn't Cold.

(This is Leo. Scared, and young, and vulnerable and warm, before his heart turned to ice.)

He rubs roughly at his eyes, takes deep, shaky breaths, to bring himself back to now. He knows Ray hasn't left, can hear him breathing at the door. 

Len gets to his feet, wipes his eyes again and pauses at the door for a long moment. He needs to be Snart, needs to be Cold. 

He hits the button, and the door slides open. Ray looks surprised that Len gave in. He looks concerned, genuinely worried about Len. Jesus, what has Len done to deserve that? 

“Did you want something, Raymond?” Len tries to lace his voice with the sarcasm everyone is used to. It sounds hollow. 

“I wanted to see if you were okay.” Ray sounds so sweet, so earnest, “You seemed pretty rattled back there.”

“I'm fine, you can go.” 

Len walks back into the room, leaves the door open for Ray. He wants to scream at him to leave, but another part of him is desperate for him to stay. 

“You're doing better than me then. I mean, Len, we're…”

Len cuts him off, points a finger at Ray, “Don't you say it. _We_ aren't anything. _They_ are. We are not them.”

“Yet.” 

“Ever. That is not my future.”

Ray walks further into the room, taps a quick override into the keypad, locking the door with his own code. 

“You don't think you're overreacting to this?” Ray asks.

A little voice in Len’s head, one that sounds suspiciously like Mick, laughs, throws out a yes. 

“You're acting like we've seen our gory demise, not our home.” Ray chuckles, “ _Our_ home.”

There's a fond smile on his face, and Len hates how it makes his heart stutter. Len hates how hopeful Ray looks about their future. Len hates their future.

Len hated the looks on the faces of future Len and Ray in the photos on the walls, how Ray looked at Len like he's his world, how Len's smiles looked sincere. Len hated the tastefully decorated house, the warm, homey atmosphere. He hated the smell of dogs, the small children's shoes and toys laid about. He hated everything about it, because he knows it's not real.

“Is it because it's me?” Ray asks, snapping Len from his pity party, “Because you had your eye on Sara, or… anyone but me.”

“The problem is that none of it is real!” Len snaps, more honest than he plans to be, “This is one possible future, it just happens to be most convenient for Hunter to get what he needs.” 

“And you’re sad because it's not real?” Ray asks.

“I am not going to settle down in a house, with someone like you, with children and live a happy life. That's not how my story ends.” 

“Why?” Ray asks, and Jesus, Len hopes Ray deals with their kids incessant questions, because he's got no patience.

“Because guys like me don't deserve that, and guys like you deserve better than people like me.” 

His brutal honesty shuts Ray up for a moment, stuns him into silence. Len doesn’t think he's ever heard Ray this quiet. 

“Len,” Ray breathes, taking a step across the room, closer to Len. He reaches out, as if to take Len's hands, but thinks better of it.

“A few years ago, my fiancée died.” Ray explains, “It nearly killed me. I never thought I'd ever fall hard enough for someone again that I'd marry them, have kids, have the life we… _they_ have.”

Len wants to throw a sharp barb back at Ray, wants to lash out because he's hurting and confused, because that's who Cold is. Instead he stays silent, avoids looking at him.

“I don't know why I fall in love with you, why we’re married or how that's our future, but I know for the first time since this started that I'm excited about it.” Ray sounds so sincere, so loving, “You don't think you deserve that, you don’t deserve the happiness we have, but you do.” 

Ray does reach out for Len now, takes his hands. His hands are warm, rough, gentle. 

“You deserve it all, Len. We deserve it.” 

Len should be ripping his hands away, should be throwing abuse at Ray and telling him to get his hands off him. He should be hitting him in the face, screaming at how this is bullshit and Ray is an overly optimistic idiot. He stares at their joined hands, at how right they look together, how safe he feels with Ray's hands in his.

But fuck, he wants to believe Ray could be right, that his, their future is worth fighting for. Len squeezes his hands, the most he's willing to give that this has affected him. 

“We’re not hyphenating.” Len tells him, looking back up to Ray, “Snart-Palmer…”

“Palmer-Snart.” Ray corrects.

“It sounds like a disease.” Len tells him, letting go of Ray’s hand.

“We could merge our names? Snarmer?” Ray offers. He snaps his fingers, bounces on the balls of his feet. “We could be Ray and Len Atom.”

“Get out, Raymond.”

“Ray and Len Cold?”

“ _Out_.”


	2. And So It Goes...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The future...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally this was written as part of the first chapter, it was interspersed with the first part and it went a bit Memento-y and confusing. 
> 
> That's why the formatting is a little bizarre, and why it's so short and sharp.

Their relationship builds slowly, quietly, secretly. They don't force anything, don't rush into everything just because they know what that future had in store for them.

 

\--x

 

Their first kiss is a year after they find out about their future. It’s at the Stonewall riots, and Len can't think of anywhere better. Sara had grown bored of heterosexuals and had wanted to see her history. _Their_ history. Len had watched Ray cheering as Marsha P Johnson threw the first brick, and suddenly his future seemed more real, more tangible.

 

Ray was gorgeous, perfect, passionate.

 

Only Len could fall for someone surrounded by chaos.

 

\--x

 

They don't rush into bed, take what they have slow. Quiet, intimate dates when they have moments to themselves, learning about each other, about Lisa, about Ray's family. Len tells Ray he killed his father, Ray tells him he'd have helped him hide the body.

 

\--x

 

They sleep together for the first time during a rare visit home. Lisa is out of the city, and Ray has nobody he wants to see, not as much as Len.

 

They make love at Len's place in Central City. Ray is the first person he's brought there in far too long. Lisa, Mick, they're the only people who know it exists. Now Ray.

 

They spend their weekend in bed, moving only for food and bathroom breaks.

 

It's bliss, Len hopes their future is just this.

 

\--x

 

They fight.

 

They fight and everyone suffers. The Waverider is unbearable when they've fought, refusing to be in the same room, sniping at each other. Len reverts to Cold, nitpicks at everything Ray does just to hurt him.

 

\--x

 

They make up and everyone suffers.

 

Neither are quiet.

 

\--x

 

When they beat Savage, three years after starting on their journey, Hunter offers everyone the chance to write some other wrongs, to save other parts of history.

 

He gives them the same 24 hours as before to decide.

 

Len and Ray are the only two who don't join the crusade.

 

\--x

 

Ray plans to propose first, but the ring miraculously goes missing.

 

Only to turn up in Len’s hand as he asks Ray to marry him.

 

\--x

 

The wedding is small. Their old team stands by their side. Oliver Queen is Ray's best man, Mick is Len's.

 

Lisa and Sara meet for the first time, and Len doesn't know why he's surprised when he finds them together in his bed.

 

\--x

 

At the reception, a drunk Hunter confesses the whole thing had come as a huge shock to him. Len and Ray were never married in any futures he’d known.

 

Unless you count the undercover mission he'd sent them on.

 

\--x

 

They fight.

 

They fight, and they fight, and they fight.

 

Len runs, because Len doesn't know what to do.

 

Mick takes him in, then punches him, tells him he's being a goddamn idiot. Mick tells him that maybe he might not get love and romance, and it's alien to him, but Len and Ray made sense.

 

Len tells him to go fuck himself.

 

Mick tells him to go fuck his husband, and apologise for being an ass.

 

\--x

 

He goes back after three days, when his old bed at Mick's feels too empty, feels too cold, when he misses waking up to warm brown eyes and a slow smile.

 

He's ready for Ray to scream at him, when he reaches the door, but Ray just pulls him into his arms, and clings to him.

 

“Their future isn't real, Len.” Ray tells him, “Ours can be.”

 

\--x

 

It is, and it’s goddamn glorious.

**Author's Note:**

> Come join me on [Tumblr](http://damnstevens.tumblr.com).


End file.
